The Chinese city of Shanghai on Wednesday began administering an inhalable COVID-19 vaccine in what appears to be a world first.
The vaccine, a mist that is sucked out of the mouth, is presented loose as a booster dose for others who are already vaccinated, according to an announcement posted on an official social media account in the city.
Needle-free vaccines can convince others who don’t like to get vaccinated to get vaccinated, as well as expand vaccination in poor countries because they are less difficult to administer.
China has no vaccination mandates, but it needs more people to get boosters before easing strict pandemic restrictions that are slowing the economy and desynchronizing with the rest of the world.
A video posted through Chinese state media online showed others at an online fitness center stuffing the short tip of a translucent white cup into their mouths. The attached text states that after inhaling slowly, a person held his breath for five seconds, with the entire procedure ending in 20 seconds.
“It’s like drinking a cup of milk tea,” a Shanghai resident said in the video. “When I breathed it, it tasted a little sweet. “
A vaccine given in the mouth can also repel the virus before it reaches the rest of the respiratory system, depending in part on the length of the droplets, one expert said.
Larger droplets would bring defenses in certain parts of the mouth and throat, while smaller droplets would penetrate deeper into the body, Dr. Brown said. Vineeta Bal, immunologist in India.
Chinese regulators approved the vaccine for use as a booster in September. It was developed through Chinese biopharmaceutical company Cansino Biologics Inc. As an aerosol edition of the single-injection adenovirus vaccine from the same company, which uses an innocent bloodless virus.
Cansino said the inhaled vaccine has finished trials in China, Hungary, Pakistan, Malaysia, Argentina and Mexico.
Regulators in India have approved a nasal vaccine, a needle-free approach, but it has yet to be implemented. The vaccine, developed in the United States and licensed by Indian vaccine manufacturer Bharat Biotech, is injected into the nose.
According to the World Health Organization, a dozen nasal vaccines are being injected around the world lately.